While we were all in Los Angeles I did basic enameling with the girls. While using a torch is a bit scary they all did GREAT. I need to take some photos of their pieces to show you. But here are some pictures of the crew at work!

Laura just prepped a piece and is getting ready to torch I think.

Suzanne putting on the enamel powder (and in a newly acquired find from the Garment District):

And I think this is Emily holding her recently enameled frog?

Thank you it Art Unraveled 2008 and Richard for getting me hooked again. All of them LOVED it I think.

And we did some basic earring making also. Don’t they look like teenagers here humoring their aunt? They are very good teenagers…

Ok – so blogging everyday – not going to work for me. Maybe I need to try to blog once a week for a goal for the month of September. Well actually I think I best blog every day this WEEK and then for September/October I better try blogging once a week.

August was a great month! First Art Unraveled in Phoenix and then a week with my nieces in L.A. So lets start with my most recent adventures.

Los Angeles Garment District- been forever since I have done this. I took three teenagers clothes shopping in downtown L.A. I will need to put up a few of the outfits we found.

Oh and the FIDSA Scholorship store in their complex (which is a few blocks outside of the fashion district) was great. I wish I had a photo of Laura in the to die for red raincoat – a steal at $8. Emily is after my own heart – when she found the cutest dance dress for $5 – well who could not buy it? Even Suzanne found things there.

Oh and this is the building where Project Runway is being done this year!!!! Woohoo!!!!! Wish that 1) I had known that and 2) that they put the poor designers from the show in a glass enclosed design studio so we could all watch when we were there.

It seems I will be writing in weird order on this. Comes with when I have photos to go with the stories (excluding this one). Thus the shopping day in Phoenix is posted and a trip to Dairy Queen in L.A. also.

So it seems the girls are addicted to Dairy Queen – something about their not being any in Houston and its like their dad’s favorite place growing up. So they wanted to do Dairy Queen everyday. They even got Nana and Papa to go although not this day.

This is a brownie sundae (with oreos maybe?) – modeled by Suzanne. Oh and note the cute dress and purse – a couple of the purchases in the Garment District!

Not sure what Emily is modelingn the way of desserts and you can’t see her great new dress from theGarment District:

Friday was my SHOPPING DAY!!!! I only went to two places because if there is one place HOTTER than Vegas its Phoenix. Plus they had HUMIDITY. Ugh. The storm finally broke the day AFTER I left town of course, so the whole time it was way too hot. And Las Vegas – well we were having 90 degree weather while I was in Phoenix. There is just something so WRONG about that!

But this isn’t about the weather (although it comes up again later) so first stop was SAS! First off – good news (for me). SAS had a fire last year and when they rebuilt – they put in AIR CONDITIONING! I had put SAS as my first stop because with ….pumps versus air conditioning – well they don’t work well in humidity so I figured I best do this stop while it might be below 100 degrees.

SAS – hard to describe but fun to shop…this year I stuck to TRIMS and LACES. And I stuck to DEALS. So these trim cards – $2 for the CARD. Yes you heard me right. 10 cards so $20…how could I turn that down?

The laces – 25 cents to 50 cents a yard…

This place is a huge wearhouse FILLED with fabrics and trims and such. But I don’t NEED anything right now and I DO NOT have a warehouse to STORE things in so – trims and laces were what I got. Actually I needed something like a chenille in white for a project I wanted to work on while in Phoenix but all I was able to find was burlap (haveI mentioned I have a thing lately for burlap? Have you seen SILK burlap? Oh so nice looking and to feel.) Now this burlap is NOT silk – just plain burlap like. I even looked at wool but it was too hot to buy wool.

Then I went to a new quilt store called 3DudesQuilting I had not picked a quilt store to check out so I googled Phoenix quilt stores (because I (thought I ) needed batting for a project while there) And I thought they might have the chenille I was looking for (oh found that at The Cotton Shop in Redondo Beach CA on my next adventure!).

So why did I pick this quilt store? Well my luck was great – they were having their grand opening event and if you printed out their coupon and brought it you had 40% off EVERYTHING you bought at that time – good for a one time purchase.

Ok – me and a quilt store and a coupon? Dangerous!!!

The funny thing – their Air Conditioning was broke. I should have REVERSED the order of shopping. Great store, great deal, great staff. Really made me wish I lived closer. Sounds like the kind of quilt store you want around the corner. And they were so apologetic about the AC like they had anything to do with it. And a fridge full of water for all of us. Yes by the time I left they had quite a crowd.